One show I’ve been enjoying this season has been Rinne no Lagrange, a fun-fun moe mecha anime with some yuri undertones which features a girl named Madoka (no, not that Madoka) who’s asked to pilot a mech in order to save the Earth from bromance aliens. Always genki (happy, positive, energetic), she’s essentially the opposite of the whiny, emo Amuro Ray from the classic Gundam series. Aside from the silly English add-on (“Flower declaration of your heart”), the title of the series was interesting to me, and I found myself wondering what it might mean. The word rinne (pronounced “reen-neh” and known by the name samsara in English) is an advanced concept found in Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions, describing the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth that people go through constantly (e.g. “you’re born, you live, you go on some diets, you die”). Japanese people don’t accept the rebirth/reincarnation aspects of Buddhism, however, and mainly use the word rinne to describe situations that will repeat forever, e.g. a daughter who doesn’t show respect to her parents will find herself in the same situation when she has disrespectful children of her own, etc.
Who’s putting Buddhist philosophy in our anime?
